About Michael Bryan

Atlanta native, Double Domer (’10/’12), and current Indianapolis resident. Writing mostly about advanced stats, since they’re more informative than traditional ones, but the numbers are always the starting point – not the whole story.

Everything went wrong, but let's power through to look at which advanced stats were bad, ugly, and terrible in Notre Dame's loss to Miami. And instead of previewing Navy, who looks like a usual Midshipman team in advanced and traditional stats, let's look at the validity of some hot takes from the blowout loss. The [...]

Breaking down the advanced stats from a wild win over Wake Forest - a poor performance from the defense that isn't as bad without garbage time, an uncharacteristic struggle in the red zone, and a look ahead at an enormous showdown in Miami this weekend. The Basics This game is a perfect summary of why [...]

Eventually Notre Dame will have a game where they aren't ripping away turnovers, rushing at will for over 300 yards, and dominating on both sides of the ball in the red zone. That day was not last weekend against USC, as Brian Kelly stayed undefeated since dancing with his team to Post Malone and Quavo [...]

Ahead of Saturday's battle for the Jeweled Shillelagh (anyone notice Brian Kelly is super into rivalry trophies lately?), how do the Trojans and Irish match up in each advanced stats category? Where is USC susceptible, and what should Notre Dame fans be worried about? USC Offense vs. Notre Dame Defense Immediately after the loss to [...]

As the halfway point of the regular season approaches, how are contenders looking across conferences? Who are the current playoff favorites, and what teams could be spoilers in the November chaos? Introduction To simplify this early preview, let's operate under this assumption: A zero or 1-loss team that wins a Power Five conference is in. [...]

Checking out the advanced stats from Notre Dame at North Carolina: a dominant defensive performance, solid job by Ian Book as game manager, and a look at what's ailing the wide receivers. The Basics This wasn't a particularly pretty win, but thanks to a dominant defensive effort it never felt like an Irish victory was [...]

Reviewing Notre Dame's cruise-control victory against the closer Miami: it's nice to have an offense whose floor includes often putting up nearly 50 points and rushing for 300 yards, and why there's a few reasons for caution before getting too optimistic about this Irish defense. The basics In a game that was never in doubt [...]

When the post-game conversation centers around how high the performance ranked in the Brian Kelly era and debating the significance of a +3 turnover margin and garbage time yards, things went pretty well. Below we'll take a look at the advanced stats from Notre Dame's wire-to-wire win over Michigan State. The basics The “First Take”-style [...]

Breaking down the classic "beat an opponent by 29 points, yet inspire a crisis of confidence in your fanbase" win over Boston College. What does Notre Dame's offensive identity look like through three games, and how might the Irish evolve if the passing game doesn't improve*? *It might just improve The Basics Saturday’s game was [...]

Recapping Notre Dame's tough loss to Georgia with an review of the advanced stats. In a fairly even contest, where did the Irish come up short? Bear with me for a quick trip into an alternate universe… Notre Dame finally reversed their streak of losses in close games, gutting out a tough 22-20 win over [...]

Recapping Notre Dame –Temple with advanced stats: a dominant rushing performance, some questions in the passing game, and an improving defense that showed flashes but needs more consistency. Introduction If you’ve been with us a few years, you’ll notice a few tweaks and changes for 2017. I’ll introduce them as they arrive, but as always [...]

It's time to break out the advanced stats again, taking a glance at the few things that went right and the many things that went wrong in 2016 and predicting how they'll change this season. Last year I broke out each of Bill Connelly's Five Factors into it's own posts, but procrastination has led to [...]

If you’ve missed it last week, it’s a great chance to catch up on the annual preseason rankings of the top 25 Notre Dame football players over at Inside the Irish. You can see the consensus ranking that includes our ballot and Douglas Farmer’s astute commentary over there, but if you’ve read this far, you [...]

As fall practice begins, it’s getting closer and closer to prediction time for all of your favorite writers. And for Notre Dame in 2017, that means that every one-line prognostication will devote a few words to Brian Kelly’s future. “Notre Dame: 9-3 with an improved defense under Mike Elko, cooling Brian Kelly’s hot seat.” Or [...]